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Justice and the common good
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Sandel says that there are three ways of looking at justice: maximizing welfare, respecting freedoms, and promoting virtue (6). Each one of these idea leads to a different way of looking at life and thinking about justice. The first idea of maximizing welfare is a Utilitarian view and according to Jeremy Bentham, maximizing welfare means maximizing whatever produces the greatest amount of pleasure and happiness in one’s life, and avoiding whatever brings pain and suffering(+). The second idea is about respecting freedoms, which is a Libertarian view, and the claim of this idea is that every single person has a right to individual liberty, and every person should be able to do whatever they want with themselves and their belongings, as …show more content…
People don’t want to to live under the rule of another being and that’s why they will always fight for freedom. Through history there has been much backlash from the people that don’t receive the freedom they think they deserve. Whether it be invasions by other countries, or a problematic corrupt and unfair government, people will always aim to push back and gain their freedom. With this hard earned freedom then comes progress; without freedom there is no progress is a society. That is why today we see so many nations with little freedom that are completely falling apart, because they can not push forward and progress to build their society …show more content…
This yearning to fight for freedom certainly has it problems. For all the societies that fought back and earned their freedom and made much progress, there are many societies that have taken a turn for the worst while in the pursuit of freedom. Some places the rule is just so heavy it is hard for the people to fight back and this lead to many problems. Warfare can erupt, destroying the nation’s land, structure, and resources as well as killing many of the citizens many of them innocent people. People can be left with nothing and have nowhere to go, just like we are seeing today with the Syrian refugees. Furthermore, if the fight for freedom is lost, the controlling force will strike down even harder on its people and make the nation an even worse place to live in, with even less freedoms than before. Human life needs freedom, but it can easily be taken
struggle for the power of freedom might be just to be allowed to exist at all.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may
Liberty is one of if not the most highly desired things in this world today and in the past. In many countries people beg and fight for liberty but other places people have it given to them. Throughout history there have been examples of countries resulting to violence and warfare in order to attain the liberties they seek. The United States, in the Revolutionary War, fought for their liberties and their freedom, and the French during the French Revolution fought for theirs as well. Eugene Delacroix painted a well known picture depicting this event called “Liberty Leading the People” showing Lady Liberty leading the French through a battle while raising the French flag in one hand and holding a rifle in the other, uniting her people through war. Over 100 years later, George Orwell wrote a commentary piece during WWII stating how no country should stand aside and be pacifists during war. In order to beat enemies a country cannot just lay down instead they must take action to defeat them, push for peace aggressively, and come together as a country with undivided morals. Both Orwell and Delacroix demonstrated how in order to attain freedom a country cannot be pacifists but must take aggressive action and come together as one to achieve their desired liberties.
Jeremy Bentham, one of the founders of Utilitarianism, believed his philosophy could provide for the “greatest happiness of the greatest number of people”. However benign it may sound, at the heart of Utilitarianism is a cold, teleological process which reduces happiness to a mere commodity. It is even worse that Saul Alinsky would extend this philosophy to a point where the truth becomes relative, justice becomes a tool of those powerful enough to wield it, and any means are justified to reach one’s desired ends.
From the Age of Exploration to the Revolutionary period, many factors shaped the connotation of the word liberty. Liberty is defined as, “the quality or state of being free” (Merriam-Webster). This means religious freedoms, political freedoms, social freedoms, and many freedoms we may not think of on a daily basis. Throughout history, the word liberty has developed into a word with a positive connotation as well as a word used to describe the freedom we have today. The idea of liberty developed because of, religious persecutions, restrictions, and maltreatment during the fifteenth century through the seventeenth century.
Freedom is having the right to own, act, think, and speak without any restrictions from the outside. Ever since the New World was discovered, people have been fighting for their independence till this day. People of other colors and race have been forced to do labor without their consent. Today, those same people have been blamed or accused of crimes that were not committed by them despite of being free. Freedom has different meanings and those meanings change overtime; however sometimes the significance of freedom does not change.
A common error that people make is that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th our national Independence day in the United States, but the truth is that the document was only approved on July 2nd and wasn’t even signed until August 2nd. The document was signed by 56 colonial delegates, and was used to explain why they want to break free from Britain. This document consists of 4 parts, statement of purpose, the contract theory of government, grievances, and the conclusion, the two major parts are the contract theory of government, grievances; they make up the bulk of the document. The colonists wanted to officially split from Britain due to the many unjust things Britain had done. The Declaration of Independence was a list of those unjust things and who gave them the authority to split.
Throughout history freedom has had many different meanings and definitions; based on race, gender, and ethnicity. According to the dictionary freedom means the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint (“freedom” def. 1). Freedom may seem like something given to everyone however it was something workers had to fight for. Not everyone believed that workers’ rights needed to be changed, which led to a long battle between workers, employers and the government. To the working class people freedom meant making higher wages, having regulated hours, workable conditions and the right to free speech.
The United States rests upon a foundation of freedom, where its citizens can enjoy many civil liberties as the result of decades of colonial struggles. However, African Americans did not achieve freedom concurrently with whites, revealing a contradiction within the “nation of liberty”. It has been stated that "For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place." African Americans gained freedom through the changing economic nature of slavery and historical events like the Haitian Revolution policies, whereas whites received freedom
Justice plays a valuable part in the public’s life; no matter who you are or where you are from. In Michael Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? the reader encounters six specific approaches to lawfulness and ethical morality, which constitute of utilitarianism, libertarianism, Locke, Kant, Rawls, and Aristotle. Each of these definitive philosophies falls under one of three general concepts and categories. These consist of freedom, virtue, and welfare. Exclusively judging the title of the book, one may think that it attempts to solve or bring forth ethical and moral issues of our time. After reading the book however, the reader becomes aware that Sandel’s work is much
Jeremy Bentham is widely regarded as the father of utilitarianism. He was born in 1748 into a family of lawyers and was himself, training to join the profession. During this process however, he became disillusioned by the state British law was in and set out to reform the system into a perfect one based on the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle,’ ‘the idea that pleasurable consequences are what qualify an action as being morally good’. Bentham observed that we are all governed by pain and pleasure; we all naturally aim to seek pleasure and avoid pain. He then decided that the best moral principle for governing our lives is one which uses this, the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle.’ This is that the amount of overall happiness or unhappiness that is caused by an action should determine whether an action is right or wrong. He stated,
“Freedom.” It is a word with many different connotations, but symbolizes one central idea: Liberty. Freedom has always been deeply embedded in the history of our nation. Throughout time, many Americans have fought for freedom. From the Pilgrims, who set sail from England to the shores of Cape Cod to escape religious persecution, to the Founding Fathers of America who fought for freedom from England’s oppression, our fellow Americans have always fought for what they believed in. They gained certain freedoms that they thought would not only be important to them, but to future generations. However, it is evident that society today does not value those same freedoms.
Morality as a whole tries to create a distinction between right and wrong, good and bad. Making decisions should arguably always be aimed towards good. Under the philosophical doctrine of Utilitarianism, philosophers like Bentham and Mill recognize that human kind should make their lives useful and good through bringing about happiness or pleasure. The idea of the “Greatest Happiness Principle was introduced by Bentham, who was a Utilitarian predecessor to Mill. According to Mill, human lives should abide by the “Greatest Happiness Principle.” This principle states that actions are good as they tend to promote happiness; and bad as they promote the reverse of happiness, therefore humans should make a conscious choice of action that will lead
Michael Sanders, a Professor at Harvard University, gave a lecture titled “Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? The Moral Side of Murder” to nearly a thousand student’s in attendance. The lecture touched on two contrasting philosophies of morality. The first philosophy of morality discussed in the lecture is called Consequentialism. This is the view that "the consequences of one 's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.” (Consequentialism) This type of moral thinking became known as utilitarianism and was formulated by Jeremy Bentham who basically argues that the most moral thing to do is to bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people possible.
Both Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, had thoughts of the Principle of Utility and what it should be like. Bentham believes that the Principle of Utility depends on pain and pleasure and Mill believes that the Principle of Utility depends on higher pleasures and lower pleasures. Pain meaning evil and pleasure meaning good or greater benefits and higher pleasures meaning that action was good which would lead to a higher level of happiness and lower pleasures meaning bad which would lead to a decreasing level of happiness. Therefore, a normative ethical theory that has come through from this and it is Utilitarianism. The definition of Utilitarianism is a course of action that maximizes the total